Another exciting week here in Covidia. Or should it be Coronaville? I'm still undecided, but the latter just feels more tropical climate kind of outbreak. Seattle is not looking stellar in the containment department of late. Washington, generally has some bleakness to it. I mean lots of the US isn't looking good at all, so we're in plenty of company, but we had such a good start on controlling this, it's disappointing to see the numbers go to all time highs like they are. Coach Inslee has threatened going back to lockdown and he might have the right idea.. In the meantime, we're wearing masks and avoiding indoor events and the like. But watch out, everyone Jay's comin' for your hair cuts!!!
Ah well. We got a nice(ly chaotic) home these days.
But enough about the end of the world. Our excitement here was all domestic adventuring.
After four quotes, a few requotes, a few conversations with board members who promised us our application was basically approved, and a good month-long wait for actual notice of approval... we finally got our heat pump/AC installed! It was a messy exciting process that I witnessed little beyond the aftermath of.
Since we still have the option, Chaya and I hightailed it out of West Seattle and off to Gramma Bunny's house.
 |
| Home of the rotating Allan exchibit |
I stayed along for about a day and a half before being summoned home to help with the clean up. Man, we need a cleaning service for this house. It being the age of covid, preferably a sassy robot maid like in the Jetsons.
It's strange. There isn't significantly more usable space than our last apartment, but there's infinitely more cleanable space. And, unlike Mount Vernon, there's still a fair bit of carpeting wood floors are so easy to clean. It took me an entire day to vacuum the carpeted areas and take a good crack at dusting the blinds (mudding might have been more accurate). We did not inherit the home in pristine condition and it's been a while, so should be easier eventually. But Chaya will be having significantly more outings with her Gramma if we're ever getting the dirt and dust under wraps.
Suddenly, wearing shoes inside the house seems way higher consequence. We may (despite my plantar fasciitis and need for supportive orthotics that originally nulled this whole conversation for me) become one of those families who take their shoes off at the door and make it awkward for visitors to find a tiny place to sit to remove their shoes in our tiny entry way.
Which means time for me to never leave the house or at least have dedicated house shoes that are replicas of my out of house shoes but never leave the house. We should have kept the shoe covers they had here after the house showings!
 |
| From single small room the *third* day that I vacuumed it |
But my reward for all this cleaning was almost sorta sleeping in a few days (by which I mean getting up at my usual buttcrack of dawn and then crawling back into bed a few hours later to lazily "wake up" with Andrew).
And we had our first legit "date night" in an eternity. Wildness ensued. We ordered Indian food and watched Guardians of the Galaxy. This was fun because we've been binging on Parks and Rec, so every time Chris Pratt comes on screen looking all dashing and ripped, one of us would whisper "Andy Dwyer" or "Johnny Karate" and start laughing. I think the movie was ok as well. The moral I took away was largely that Zoe Saldana has a teeny tiny waist and - as Andrew pointed out - she seems to like to play characters with tons of body makeup.
 |
| Additional construction work provided by Allandrew Construction |
So the a/c is cool (har har). Super quiet. Programmable. But there's this problem in which whenever we close the windows and run the AC, the air quality monitor starts to flip its shit and indicate there are CHEMICALS (VOCs, it says). Notably chemicals that don't make the air so quality. I got the monitor in the first place because my throat hurt and I felt light headed in a certain way when we first moved in. That probably turned out to be a can of paint in the garage that had a giant hole in the side. But of course I have wondered if maybe there was something else up with the house than that.
Anyways, with the windows open we get fantastic air usually. Only exception being the morning of July 5th (close all the windows immediately AAAAAAAAAAHHH! The air's on fire!!!!). Best theory is that some sealant they used in installation of our nifty AC is off-gassing and hopefully will stop off-gassing in time. But who knows!
Anyways... not ideal, since my ultimate reasoning for "we NEED air conditioning" was that sometimes Washington's forests all ignite in August, and then the air outside is fairly toxic. When that happens, you have to keep the windows closed all the time. I imagine that the nasty chemical air quality issues inside still outweigh the particulate matter outside on those days but it's ... well not exactly my hope. As it is, I'm mostly finding myself leaving the windows open and imbibing the fresh grass pollen - noticing later that actually my degree of itchiness does seem to continue to correlate to pollen counts for a given days (and it's a hindsighted pollen count so I am not just psychosomatic about the whole thing).
More important takeaway, we do have AC and that's helpful since we're moving from the rainy part of summer to the summer part of summer. Predicted highs in the upper 80s for a few days. I'm sure we'll poke at 90 eventually and it's really nice for sleeping at night not to sleep in a swamp. Also there are already wildfire warnings for Eastern Washington so...
But enough about our air conditioning.
Back to the honey-bunny-chil' who was happily chilling with her Gramma while all this went down.
Picking up Allan was a little different. In the olden days of yore, we used to meet at a Mexican restaurant in Marysville. It was a fun tradition in the pre-Covid world, but... not so much these days. So either mommy picks Allan back up or Pam drops her off, and either way Allan cries a lot because she wants to go back with/stay with Pam.
If Pam happened to drive to our house to drop her off, Pam is then paralyzed because she also would like to take Allan back home with her and can't leave while Allan is crying. Eventually we just end up all sitting on the couch while Allan cries and mourns the loss of her big screen tv and grandparental indulgence.
So this time, we tried the Taco Time parking lot! Mostly because Chaya and Pam go to Taco Time as their special tradition. They love sitting in the car now together and even have special car trays.
It was a little more confusing for Andrew and Mama Bunny. I have ordered food via door dash twice since lockdown. That's pretty much the extent of eating-out. And the last time I went through a drive through was roughly in the Pleistocene. We tried ordering in advance via the Taco Time app but there were a number of questions about the customization of Andrew's meal that maybe confused me or Andrew, usually both. He was pretty well convinced that I had ordered him a giant bowl of sour cream with a side of curds and whey and a dollop of whipped cream (being lactose intolerant, he didn't actually find that appealing) by the end. I actually just ordered him a beef burrito with a side of beef (no kidding), but I get his hestitancy.
We were already at the parking lot before I assured him the order was mostly correct (and very beefy). Then we didn't know what to do next, since the Taco Time we chose did not have the most attractive parking lot. We discussed driving somewhere else with our food, but ultimately ended up deciding to drive through and eat in a shaded area in the back.
The drive-thru proved to be a bit confusing for us as well. Andrew didn't hear or see anything anything from the intercom, so he started driving forward towards the window. The worker's finally come online after he was a half car forward. He tried shouting back behind himself for a while before deciding to just reverse the car and actually come face to machine.
And yet still our manner of ordering continued to confuse the attendant. Who was definitely not on first so much as off in the bleachers looking for What??. We almost ended up with several sides of black beans and a giant bowl of sour cream. But somehow it all worked out ok. We got our food and opened our windows and "did lunch with" Allan and Gramma Bunny in the adjoining car. That was fun until the resident angry-yelling panhandler came up to our cars and we rapidly rolled up our windows full of guilt. But seriously, if you're gonna walk up to my car swearing about imaginary wrongdoers and then ask for food or money, maybe wear a mask?
He eventually drifted back to the drive-thru line and deposited his respiratory droplets all over somebody else's car. So I got out of the car and shared some chips and crustos with Allan.
For context: We are in a sharing contest and sharing contests happen always and anytime and we always share our things all the time. Well, except when Allan suddenly freaks out that mommy took an M&M from her trail mix and then it's nuclear holocaust. Or daddy asks if he can have one of Allan's goldfish and she completely ignores the request but puts her hand over her goldfish while ignoring him to make it very clear his request has been rejected. But in theory we always share.
Sharing contests usually involve Allan wanting to have some additional dessert or candy at a non-meal time, I've noticed. Though she will also share-contest cucumbers and apples in a pinch.
Happy to say, the transition worked great. Allan was delightful. She slept a little in the car, but woke up happy-babbling. She was even sweet for about half hour after coming home before the gates of hell opened up and the overtired crying tantrum meltdowns began. Gramma Lisa had sent her a birdfeeder, which was very cool. But we didn't have bird food! That was so very not ok. I suggested we just put anything in there, but Andrew felt a sense of obligation to the birds. We finally quelled her hysteria by letting her coddle a bag of "adorable" baby marshmallows, which she cared for all through the evening right until dessert time. But of course, intensity always returns. Sunday night she went out for a walk while I was making dinner, meaning she did not officially proffer her order of mac and cheese. I am a BAD BAD mommy. And she will never eat mac and cheese again to spite my offer that she could have it the next day (she did in fact mac and cheese last night).
And here we are, in warmer weather with a choice between warm allergen air or cool chemical air. Racking up significant debt in ABC Mouse (naw, they're a ticket based economy with no credit, thank god, because Allan is a shopaholic it turns out and will immediately blow all her earned tickest on a fifteenth pommel horse or a third puppy dog if there's an option). Figuring out how to make cold air from one side of the room flow to the other (fans! all the fans!). Otherwise settling into our summer. And hoping gosh golly that this covid containment turns around in time for August fun.
Stay cool!
No comments:
Post a Comment